Header 1

Our future, our universe, and other weighty topics

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Improving the Conformity Factories Known as Science Graduate Schools

Modern
science started out as a rather anti-authoritarian type of thing. The
great scientists of the Enlightenment era often opposed ancient
authorities such as Aristotle and more modern authorities such as the
Catholic priesthood. But in the past hundred years scientific
academia has itself taken on a strongly authoritarian character.
Scientists have set themselves up as a kind of new priesthood. Of
course, any priesthood requires conformity and regimentation. One
key tool in the production of conformity and regimentation among
scientists is the typical science graduate school.

Consider
the way in which students are typically taught in such a school. In
the modern Internet age with so many opportunities for
computer-assisted study and self-study, there are 101 ways in which
students could learn without being in the shadow or gravitational
pull of authority figures, without being subject to conformity
pressure. But it seems that the average graduate school seems to
teach classes in the same old way.

Students
are given some textbooks produced by professors (typically not the
professor teaching the class). Students sit in lecture halls
listening to lectures by a professor, who may assign certain chapters
in the book for reading. The subject matter may have 1001 great
uncertainties, but the combination of the officially approved science
textbook and the similar lecture by the professor send a message to
the student:

This is the official
version of truth we want you to accept. This is the official party
line that you should not question. Please accept this standardized
pablum we are spoon-feeding you.

But,
you may object, isn't it possible to engage in a debate in a science
graduate school? Yes, it is technically possible, but the setup makes
it pretty unlikely that a student will make any lengthy challenge to
what is being taught in class. A setup in which there is a professor
standing in front of a class sends a kind of “here is the guy who
knows this stuff, so accept what he's saying” message that is
enforced by the officially approved textbook. A setup in which there
are lots of students sends a kind of “each student has just a
little time slice to talk” message in which it would be considered
weird for any student to stand up and make a substantive ten-minute
challenge to what the professor is teaching. After one or two
minutes, such a student would probably be cut off by the professor,
who might do something like continue lecturing or ask some other
student for his opinion. Then there's the fact that if your
professor is giving you a grade, you may feel he will grade you more
poorly if you challenge his teachings.

What
are the output products of these type of science graduate schools?
The output products are too often what we may call sheepentists, a word that
can be constructed from the word “sheep” and the word scientist.
A sheepentist is a scientist that has been conditioned to be a meek
creature of the herd. He will move in whatever direction the members of his
science herd are moving in. If a particular theory becomes
fashionable among scientists, a sheepentist will be sure to parrot
the claims of that theory.

But
how might we teach scientists differently? You might start with the
textbooks. The first step would be to abolish the use of fixed
hardcopy textbooks in science classes taught in graduate schools,
making all books online. The second step would be to create a system
whereby student comments could be anonymously inserted anywhere in
the text of a textbook. Whenever any student read a claim in a
textbook that he felt was dubious or unsubstantiated, the student
could insert into the textbook his comments or rebuttal, at exactly
the point in the textbook the claim was made. Any such insertions
would be permanently preserved in the textbook, so that, for example,
if a textbook was used in 2017, 2018 and 2019, then in 2019 students
would read (in the middle of the text) all comments made by
students in the previous years of 2017 and 2018.

Such
a system presumably would not work in high school, and perhaps not
even for freshmen college classes – since the text might be cluttered
by junk anonymous comments. But presumably by the time someone has
entered graduate school, we can assume that he will not be
submitting sophomoric or obscene comments to be read by future
students. Anonymous comments would be vital to allow people to
express opposing opinions without fear of being socially ostracized
or peer-pressured within the small subculture of the science graduate
school. Some computer software could assign academic credit based on the number and length of comments a student
added, giving an incentive for students to insert critical comments into the textbook.

Imagine
the benefits of such a system. Now instead of being spoon-fed some
“official party line” of truth written only by some conformists,
our science textbook reader in graduate school might now get a full
spectrum of opinions.

Another
improvement would be a system of real-time anonymous feedback from
students, which can easily be done using Internet technology. As a
professor was droning on to his students, his slide show presentation
might be interrupted by popup messages telling him his presentation was
useless or unfair or unintelligible. Also, allow any independent-minded student to opt-out of receiving professorial instruction, by using online options and self-study options (preserving in-class testing).

Another
way of diminishing the “conformity factory” aspect of science
graduate schools would be to allow students to choose their own
projects for a master's thesis or a doctoral thesis, without getting
approval from professors. Requiring approval from professors
discourages paradigm-challenging research projects, and encourages
“same old same old” type of research. Let a vote of 3 graduate
students be sufficient authorization for a master's thesis project or
a doctoral thesis project.

Another
way of diminishing the “conformity factory” aspect of science
graduate schools would be to create a system of frequent public
debates inside the school. All of the key assumptions that are
rarely questioned would be publicly debated. For example, in a
biology school there might be frequent debates such as this:

Do
We Really Understand the Cause of Biological Complexity?

Does
Your Brain Actually Produce Your Consciousness?

Are We the Only
Intelligent Species in Our Galaxy?

Is DNA Actually a
Blueprint for Making a Human?

Do We Actually
Understand What Causes a Fertilized Egg to Become a Baby?

Are Mental Illnesses
Primarily Biological in Origin?

Are Genetically
Modified Foods Potentially Hazardous?

Do We Have a Credible
Theory for the Origin of the Human Mind?

The
debates might be between two contestants, the first having 40
minutes, the second having 40 minutes, and both having 15 minutes for
rebuttal. One contestant would argue the “Yes” side and the
other the “No” side. A contestant might be either a student or a
professor. Academic credit could be given for any students
participating as a debate contestant. A winner would be awarded for
each debate, based on anonymous audience judging of which contestant
won. Extra academic credit would be given for any student who was
judged the winner of a debate in which a professor was the opposing
contestant.

So if
you were a student you might get 3 academic credits for being a
contestant in a debate, and 6 academic credits for winning a debate
in which a professor was your opponent. This would create an
incentive for nonconformity and opinions challenging conventional
wisdom, one that would help to counteract the enormous conformity
pressure in science graduate schools. Students could also be given
academic credit for simply attending a certain number of debates,
which would help to make sure that they were exposed to both sides of
issues.

These
are only some ways in which our current “conformity factory”
science graduate schools could be reformed to produce outputs other
than conformist “sheepentists” who act like followers of the
herd. Among the outputs of such improved schools might be bientests
(scientists who have been educated in both sides of controversial
issues) and defyentists
(scientists who defy unwarranted but entrenched assumptions of
the scientific community). If you don't like the idea of creating
defyentists, you might want to study tech culture, which currently
assigns a great value to what is called disruptive innovation. We
need science graduate schools that will generate more disruptive
thinkers who will challenge the ossified complacent assumptions of the science
priesthood.

Copyright Notice

All posts on this blog are authored by Mark Mahin, and are protected by copyright. Copyright 2013-2014 by Mark Mahin. All rights reserved. Any resemblance between any fictional character and any real person is purely coincidental.